Missmatch
by ibuzoo
Summary: Hermione seems to fold herself into the fabric of Tom's existence with ease and a small amount of grace, and it should scare him, terrify him even. In the end Tom doesn't seem to mind at all.


**o.**

He sits down beside the boy in the dirt and pulls his head into his lap, strokes along his ears and the soft flesh just behind it, fingers craving trough dark black hair, green eyes blown wide,terrified as a deer on the run. The boy's breathing is laboured and he can smell the fear clinging to his skin, soaked into it, desperate, pining, lonely.

He kisses him once on the top of the head and then, gently, quietly, snaps his neck.

* * *

**i.**

The first time he lays eyes on her it's months earlier, it's Harry's birthday, it's loud, it's exhausting and the boy is celebrating with some friends that Tom never met before. His roommate's a boy that looks barely young enough to live on his own and Tom couldn't care less whilst he respects Tom's privacy, his free room, so let him waste his youth with alcohol and music that drums with high voltage through his ears.

But the moment Tom enters the room and sees those bright brown eyes that mirror the same desire for knowledge as his own grey ones he forgets everything, feels the laws of gravity are nonexistent and there's a hunger burning deep inside that he doesn't know how to stop just yet.

He even forgets to breathe.

* * *

**ii.**

Harry's burial is a giant event, dozens and dozens of family members and friends and Tom is sure not even half of these pedestrians knew Harry when he was still alive. His eyes dart over all of them to find Hermione into the masses of spectators. She's the only other person that's not crying, her frame proud and stoic on the other side of the coffin and she desperately tries to hold back tears, Tom can see that, sense it even, can read her face like an open book. Her eyes are strangely cold and absent and Tom wonders what's going on behind those dark brown orbs.

Then she looks at him and she knows.

* * *

**iii.**

She knows.

* * *

**iv.**

He asks her to move in, right after the burial, somewhere between mourning Harry and ‚take half of the flat he left behind, his part of the rent for the coming months is already paid' and there was a glint in her eyes, something that just knew and Tom stopped, breathes, counts seconds until she imitates him, nods, „Sure, thanks."

She turns around and Tom lets her go.

_(she returns half a week later with boxes in her hands, this pesky redhead trailing behind her to help her move in)_

* * *

**v.**

In the mornings Tom will wake to the sounds of Hermione getting ready for campus, rumbling in the bath, her steps on the thick, luxurious laminate and he waits till she leaves the apartment before he follows. In the night he falls asleep to the sounds of the bed pressed against the wall, book pages turning, her body moving, rearranging books and plants around, skin on linen and the soft breathing of an occupant seeking sleep.

He's calmer than he ever was.

* * *

**vi.**

She still knows.

* * *

**vii.**

Tom pauses in the middle of reading the morning paper, watches Hermione moving around in the kitchen with ease, potters with the pans to fix them a late breakfast and the smell of pancakes and bacon and eggs curls around his nose like an old familiar friend.

He folds the paper neatly, perfect, and walks over to her moving frame, cataloging the way her brown eyes dart nervously around the room before resting somewhere at his throat, his collarbone, setting back on his eyes, daring, mocking, brave. He feels his lips curving up in a grin so he asks, amused, "Need any help?"

"Set the table", and there's the same amusement in her voice, the same playful tone.

Tom nods and leans over to reach the drawer of cutlery.

* * *

**viii.**

She doesn't speak about Harry and Tom stays silent.

* * *

**ix.**

Textbooks intermingle with books on dead languages and leathery binds of obscure fables and somewhere along the line of teaching Hermione how to read and understand certain thesis, to speak in languages she never dared to think about before, to explore myths and history of the long dead, Tom thinks something must have shift in the way he sees her.

It sounds like a beginning, but it's definitely not, they're in the middle already and he's gasping for air while his mind is racing, screaming Hermione, Hermione, Hermione.

There's no end in sight.

* * *

**x.**

Hermione seems to fold herself into the fabric of Tom's existence with ease and a small amount of grace, and it should scare him, terrify him even.

In the end Tom doesn't seem to mind at all.

* * *

**xi.**

She still knows.

She doesn't turn him in.

* * *

**xii.**

It's a quiet night, weekend, and Tom loves to curl up on the couch with a good book, something to read, something to lose his mind with and he feels Hermione before he sees her, her body warmth a reassuring heat on his side. He spares a glance and sees the book in her hands, a book about foreign languages, old, leathery. His book. He spares another glance and sees the jumper around her lean frame, rich, luxurious, comfortable. His jumper.

There's no word spoken between them both, the silence comfy, and something catches in his chest, the start of a feeling he thought he buried deep in the darkness, teaching himself the way to live without it.

Later, much later when sleep takes Hermione halfway through the night, her head using his lap as her new favorite pillow, breath even and arms tangled around the book, he runs his long fingers through honey brown curls, enjoying the silky feel against his skin and asks himself if he'll ever be ready to let her go again.

* * *

**xiii.**

_(he'll never be ready for this)_

* * *

**xiv.**

Tom rearranges his room a month after Hermione takes Harry's, pushes his bed up right against the other side where she sleeps, the walls almost thin enough to feel her through the plaster.

In the night, his hand presses against the coolness of the plaster, fingers gripping over the material and it feels almost _(almost)_ as if he can touch her skin. Warm, smooth, breathes even as he listens to the sound of the body in the other room mirroring his position.

He falls asleep as soon as he feels the wall separating them disappear.

* * *

**xv.**

They never speak about Harry.

They don't need to.

_(she knew it all along)_


End file.
